Kolly, Tolly, Bolly fun.

I have added the Tamil report which is not as extensive in the comments section. (Sify’s confused trade reporting continues…they are calling Raavanan as hit now)

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By Telugucinema.com | Thursday, 24 June , 2010, 09:42

2010 has so far been good for Telugu cinema despite the fact that the success ratio has not increased. Very few big films lost money and even the small films got a good mileage. Balakrishna’s Simha is the biggest blockbuster so far. At the end of six months, the final hits and misses in Tollywood are as follows.

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Blockbuster

Simha

Collections: Biggest hit so far and might end up making a profit of Rs 30 -35 Crores.
Cost of production: About 18 Crores
Profit/Loss ratio: Producer Parachuri Prasad (his son Kiriti is the official producer though) safely released the movie despite a track-record of flops. He made huge money after the release. Distributors got the biggest profit ever in the recent times. Distributor in Guntur made huge profits. Interestingly, distributor of Nizam too had big laugh, although traditionally Nizam is considered a weak territory for Balakrishna. Producer sold off satellite rights (Rs 3 Crore) to Maa Tv before the release, if he had sold it after the release, it could have gone for more than Rs 5 Cr.

Reign of Evil

In early 2002, Mukesh Rishi endured what he considers his “most uncomfortable” moment as an actor. On the sets of Telugu flick Indra, he was spitting fire in dubbed Telugu at reigning Andhra superstar Chiranjeevi. At one juncture while filming—Rishi playing the bellicose ‘zamindar’ and Chiranjeevi ever the age-defying mass hero—something “unbelievably disturbing” seemed to unfold. The director explained the subsequent scene. In the upcoming frame, Chiranjeevi would finish off both Isaac Newton and Usain Bolt in one blow: he’d jump on the road and roll on the ground to save Rishi’s school-going son from a truck at full speed. But Rishi wouldn’t melt. Indeed, he would have to kill his own son as the child was “touched by the hand of his enemy”.

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Rishi had led a fascinating, if tough, life so far. He had grown up in Jammu, had run a stone-crushing business in Bombay, later gone to New Zealand, where he walked the ramp and got married to a Fijian of Indian origin. He returned to India in the late 1980s, first to debut in Bengali cinema, and then work in Hindi films before taking up Telugu assignments in the 2000s. But even he, with experience as rugged as his countenance, hadn’t heard something like this.

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“I told the director, ‘Sir, this is wrong. I’m not comfortable doing this.’” The Telugu moviemaker, Gopal B, did a Raj Thackeray on him. “You’re from the North, you wouldn’t know what clicks with an audience in the South. Do as I say.” Rishi obeyed. He went on to impale the innocent child with a sword in front of his family. As cinema, it was intended as a display of brutal feudalism. In truth, it seemed to put actual ‘zamindars’ in the shade.